1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to bed transporting devices, and particularly to a dolly for moving heavy, collapsible hospital beds.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hospitals, nursing homes and other medical facilities often use heavy, unwieldy steel beds for their patients and residents. Frequently, there is a need to move, store or clean these beds in a time efficient manner. However, the beds often weigh upwards of 1,000 lbs., and are also very bulky, making them difficult to transport. Although many of them are equipped with wheels, they are often too bulky to be wheeled through doorways or narrow corridors and must therefore be rotated or maneuvered through these passageways. Such activities often require considerable effort on the part of multiple staff members and can easily lead to injuries.
Various bed moving devices have been developed for the purpose of transporting heavy beds. These devices include elaborate hydraulic or electrically powered wheeled devices, as well as simple bracketed skating devices that attach to the bed frame. U.S. Pat. No. 5,299,659, issued Apr. 5, 1994 to Imbeault, describes a hydraulically powered bed transporting apparatus with a moveable lower support frame which is connected to a vertical, displaceable bed supporting frame. Lower bed support arms engage a side member of a bed, while an upper strap is connected to an opposed side member of the bed. The strap is wound about a drum which, when actuated by hydraulic pistons, causes the bed to tilt vertically against the supporting frame. The apparatus is supported by four unidirectional casters for rolling the apparatus on a flat surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,580,207, issued Dec. 3, 1996 to Kiebooms et al., shows an electrically powered device for moving wheeled beds consisting of a moveable frame, a lifting mechanism and a steering mechanism. A bed is loaded onto this device by wheeling the device under the bed and then activating a lifting mechanism which engages the underframe of the bed. The bed can then be pulled or pushed and steered in any direction.
Other bed transporting devices are simpler in design and function. They include dolly or skate devices that attach to the bed frame. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,098,518 and 4,210,341, issued Jul. 4, 1978 and Jul. 1, 1980, respectively, to Minkoff, describe a bed transporting apparatus having a pair of dolly devices. Each dolly is an elongated base plate with swivel-mounted casters or wheels attached underneath. The base plate is further equipped with an attachment member to engage and secure the hospital bed thereto. U.S. Pat. No. 3,580,601, issued May 25, 1971 to Miles, shows a skate device for transporting large flat objects with large surface areas. The device comprises an elongated base member with a pair of brackets mounted on the surface thereof. The brackets operatively clamp onto the object and the object is wheeled on a set of rollers. Although the aforementioned inventions are used to transport beds or bed frames, they are generally limited to moving fully assembled beds which are larger and more difficult to maneuver into smaller spaces.
None of the above inventions and patents, taken either singly or in combination, is seen to describe the instant invention as claimed. Thus a heavy bed transporting device solving the aforementioned problems is desired.